The Cocktail App: Shaken, Not Stirred

I’m sorry, but I couldn’t resist that title. But if you can forgive me, then I think you might just enjoy this app. Cocktail apps are nothing new to iOS, and quite frankly, I thought I’d seen enough of them, until this one came along. As soon as I saw the screenshots and learned that the wonderfully talented Datz brothers were designing it, I knew it was going to be special. I was not disappointed.

Want to find out more about The Cocktail App? Hit the jump and let’s tear into it.

Details and Preparation of Cocktails

Upon opening the app you will be presented immediately a list of the different cocktails. Simply tapping on one will bring up the details of the specific beverage. Under the details section you are given a lovely image of the drink, along with an explanation (a perfect quick fact that you can whip out to impress members of the opposite sex with your supreme knowledge of the beverage), and a list of the ingredients, each of which you can click on to provide you even more details.

Details of the cocktail — you know, because everyone needs to know this

A swipe to the left will bring you to the Preparation tab, a life saver if you are forced to make one yourself. Once again, you have some beautiful images of your equipment and then instructions to follow. These are very easy to follow and allow really anyone to make cocktails — providing you have the right materials.

Detailed instructions for preparation

Exploring the App

The second tab along the bottom is the Ingredients tab which has a list of all the ingredients for the many various cocktails in the app, sorted by alcoholic and non-alcoholic content. The best part about this section is that you can sort your cocktails by the ingredients. So if you like your drinks with maybe gin, scotch or maybe even some tequila, you can tap on each of the ingredients, the app marks them, and shows any cocktails that include those spirits.

Not sure what cocktail you want? Select your preferred ingredients and the app will recommend some

The third section is for your treasured cocktails — the Favourites. In any cocktail view you can hit the star in the top right corner and it will be added to this section. So when you’re in a situation where you panic at the bar and forget what you want, in about 5 seconds you can have a list of your best cocktails and you’re off.

The Favourites tab is handy instead of browsing through all of the cocktails

Design

Quite frankly, there are plenty of other cocktail apps in the App Store — some of which I even had — but what brought me to this app was the stunning design. As I am sure you have noticed from the previous screenshots, this app was built with the number one goal of looking fantastic, which it accomplishes by using subtle green and black tones and the absolutely wonderful icons. This app is a work of art, and although it may provide only a bit more functionality than the competition, it is by far my favourite due to its aesthetic nature.

Magnificent icons designed by Konstantin Datz

Functionality/Performance

We’ve seen the amazing design, but what’s a pretty app without a stellar performance? Well, I can tell you that this app is extremely quick and responsive, and that is down to the awesome developer, Moritz von Volkmann. He has done a wonderful job with the entire app. For example, the table view in the second Ingredients tab was made entirely from scratch, rather than using Apple’s Table View. It’s touches like this that make the app snappy and a joy to use — well done.

Complaints?

I’ve gone on and on about the positive side of the app, but are there any negatives? The answer is yes, but only slightly. The biggest complaint for me is that there are only 38 cocktails, which is by no means a tiny amount, but it would be great to see more. Hopefully more drinks come in a future update.

Conclusion

If you can’t tell by now, I love this app. Its unlikely to be one that you will use everyday and be essential to your life, but it’s a great app for its convenience alone. It will give you all you need to know about each cocktail, from the ingredients, to its background and the creation process, all wrapped up in a beautiful piece of art. Overall, it’s well worth the $1.99 not only for its use, but that is well under the cost of any cocktail you’re likely to find. Plus, with this you can make them yourself with ease for much less money — think of it as a good investment.